Stuff my dog says; on second thought I'll just build a race car

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Engine mounts welded, plus got the transmission mount and cross member sleeved. Ended up I shoved a block at the rear and just let the front end droop and was able to roll the thing enough to get to the engine mounts without removing the power train completely. Plus the chassis got to roll which is awesome. I took a short video with it rolling but don't have the link handy to embed it right now.

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That was done early enough I started making lower coil over mounts for the front. Cut a little more material off them after the pictures and they're ready to weld to the control arms now and that's where I'll start tomorrow.
 
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New forum software, weird. Got the shocks mounted in the front end today, ended up taking all day which was pretty frustrating but whatever. I ended up doing lots of measuring and checking of the front end while I was messing with the shocks. The width of the front was off testing things previously which didn't make much sense. In the end things are extremely close now with the deviation down in the eighth inch range. The control arm angles are all within a tenth of a degree of each other, camber is evened out side to side and all that good stuff. Somehow making the controls arms off the same template I ended up with different length control arms apparently, but taking the joints in and out multiple times I'm assuming some ended up moving on me.

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Weight on the front wheels, got the block out that was holding the front end up and the engine and transmission being supported by the chassis. This picture is kinda funny looking and distorted. The steering rack especially looks like it isn't parallel to the cross member, so much so that seeing the picture I immediately checked it with the digital angle finder again to make sure it was just a distortion. One thing that isn't all in the picture is the left hand (right side of the picture) suspension is sitting at a slightly different level of compression than the right side since right now more driveline weight is on that side but I want the chassis level still. So things are slightly dissimilar to combat different levels of tire deflection under load.
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Doing things like this did alleviate my fears of suspension binding problems. I was able to check the amount of suspension droop using a floor jack under the cross member and it was over the inch I was looking for which is awesome as I've been troubled by the thought that my ball joints were binding and limiting suspension travel way more than I had anticipated. While I don't have a specific number to relay here it was somewhere in the 1.25-1.5 inch range. Thinking about it sitting here now I may remove the pipe sections and get measurements for overall travel tomorrow. While I'm thinking about it too, I took measurements and did math and the steering is roughly 37 degrees at full lock where the tie rod ends make contact with the lower control arms. That was 35 on the outside tire and 39 on the inside with 37 obviously being an average.

Lastly just messing about with the front shocks done and it being near six at that point I grabbed the steering column and did a half assed mock up for it. Partly to satisfy my own curiosity and partly because I get tired of people telling me that the dash bar needs to be lowered. With that in there it was admitted that you wouldn't want the dash bar lower.
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Didn't get it done today, got the axle side mounts done and on there but not the frame side. I've got part of the frame side stuff cut and you can see how everything will lay but I need another few pieces to complete them before I weld them to the frame. I'm disappointed in the result to be honest, when I was first looking at the axle side stuff this morning I was looking at the right hand side when I was looking at everything. I made sure the frame was level and then made sure the axle was centered and it looked like I could get a pretty decent tilt on the shock keeping the spring below the frame tubes with the lower anchor in the middle of the axle tube and everything looked good.
Then I noticed that the axle itself was nowhere near level. It'd been mentioned in the past that the floor was level and I'd taken their word for it. It's clearly not though, I had to space that right rear tire up like three eighths of an inch to level the axle. Obviously once I had the axle level I no longer had room to tip the shocks and by that point my axle side mounts were completely welded to the axle and I'm just too lazy to want to cut them back off and redo them.
Haven't heard from anyone about tomorrow yet, I'm hoping to be able to go in a work again but may not have a way in the building.

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Shock mounts done. Funny thing this morning I got to the shop right as the only person there was leaving, unknowingly. So I managed to get my truck trapped behind the gate first thing this morning with no way to get in the shop to start working. Luckily one of the guys was at actual work for us across the street so I borrowed his key and security code to get in a work on my car. The guy I was supposed to meet didn't make it, luckily one of the workers for there did show up so I got some time even after the one I got the key from asked for his key back and went home at lunchtime.
Went from the shocks to working the Watts Linkage, which should hopefully be somewhat simple. Got stuff drawn and the width of the chassis lets things with little actual movement. The links are long enough that the vertical movement of the axle results in less than a quarter inch of lateral travel so the link bar gets very little rotation even being short. That makes packaging much simpler than I had worried.
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Ended getting the pieces cut to make the bridge bar that holds the Watts pivot before I had to leave for the day. At that point I had to leave so I took the pieces across the street to actual work and welded up that bar. Hopefully my measurements were correct, which I'm pretty confident in them, because I didn't get the opportunity to check things against the axle once I started assembling them.
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So that's ready, and I have assurances that I won't be alone when I get to the shop tomorrow so that's cool. As long as I'm not off with the bar I should be back on track for getting this done tomorrow.
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I have not viewed this thread for 2 weeks and cannot believe how much progress has been made. I thought things would slow down a bit this time of year, clearly not! All the dimensions are starting to look just right now. Keep it...:):):)
 
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Suspension is done, chassis is officially a roller. It's been a hell of a week and Monday is gonna come too early. I wish I could say this pace of progress is gonna continue but it's just not. The pathway so far has been pretty clear but now I'm not sure where to go next. I'm thinking gas tank, steering column, and gauge panel next but who knows. Jeff there has a machinist he knows that he says may want to help with the blower drive and I'm all for that but who knows. The drive has to be done before we can mount the blower and that's probably gotta be done first before the rest of the front stuff can get done.


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The gas tank is probably best left til last, otherwise you may be tempted to take the ocassional spin round the back roads prior to completion...:hump:
 
Drew up a wiring diagram and then spent another trunk full of cash.
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Ordered parts for the steering, hydraulics, a battery, seat belt, wiring bits, and a drive shaft. The drive shaft ended up being a pleasant surprise, I was able to buy a shaft off the shelf for my custom assembled mish-mash of random car parts. Oddly enough the front drive shaft from an early 1980s Jeep CJ-8 is the perfect length. So I was able to simply order an upgraded shaft for that.
 
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More drawings tonight. An actual design drawing trying to get a plan for the dash layout, and a quick sketch to show an idea for the exhaust head pipes. Also messed with measurements regarding the shifter and found out it will be substantially easier than I was earlier thinking. The shifter placement blind ended up being roughly a half inch out of line from the shifter on the transmission itself. I was always under the assumption that it would be around a 3 inch offset and need a complicated mechanism to keep it a rod linkage. With it that close anyway I'll just put it directly in line and be able to use a single rod.
 
The weather has once again conspired against me. Snow and ice Thursday ended up sending everyone home early and then forced things closed Friday to boot. We didn't bother going in today either as it's not got close enough to crossing the freezing mark nor be sunny enough to really melt everything. This has stopped all the deliveries as well so I haven't gotten any more of the parts that were ordered last week. I did order tubing for the exhaust and a heim joint to form the base of the remote shifter. So I've just been impatiently sitting at home driving my wife crazy.
 
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Misleading box is misleading, no titanium here.
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Driveshaft went right in, then did some loops around it for safety and a framework for the driveshaft tunnel.
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Then whether or not you can even tell from this picture, mocked up some bars to bring the nose pinch forward to the radiator. Really should have taken better photos there.
 
More talking, I tried to mock up some steering with the good side being Jeff had enough double D shaft laying around that my lost in Ohio bit isn't critical. The bad bit being the banjo bolts I got for the brake calipers don't fit, it looks like I guessed the bolt diameter correctly but went with the wrong thread pitch which isn't that big a deal. The worrisome bit is that the U joint I got for the steering rack doesn't actually fit the input shaft of the rack despite it being listed as the correct size and spline count.

So the plan is return the one I got which is Borgeson brand and buy what could quite possibly be the exact same thing, but Flaming River brand which is the same as the steering rack. My thinking being maybe Flaming River splines are longer/deeper than Borgeson splines? It reinforces my opinion on Flaming River as products that it doesn't state that to be the case anywhere or give any indication that it needs a special joint if that be the case.

Also I messed with the exhaust flanges I started months ago to hopefully make them ready to start building the headers.
 
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Did a battery tray today and added some bars for floor and seat pan reinforcement. I've still not received the double D shaft that I ordered January first, and now I'm also waiting for Summit to actually ship out the Flaming River steering joint. They show to have it in stock, and the order info shows the part listed as ready to ship which is what it's shown all week.
 

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